No books left in Ireland to ban

After 80 years of censorship, one of Ireland’s oldest banned books, on the grounds of obscenity will have its prohibition lifted this year.

Under the terms of the 1967 Censorship of Publications Act, books classified as “indecent or obscene” have their prohibitions lifted after 12 years.

Odran Flynn, a member of the board of censorship in Ireland since 2001 has noted there has been a dramatic decline in prohibitions in recent times.

“In the early 2000s there would have been meetings every two months, because at that stage there was a campaign by a group of people who continuously wrote in complaining about magazines. But in the last four to five years we probably haven’t met more than three times. So basically there’s been no activity at all,” he told the Irish Times.

Flynn said it would surprise him greatly “if there were any books banned in the future”.